While starting the year in a promising and dominant fashion, Intel veered a bit off-track with Cougar Point malfunctions and setbacks. Fast-forward seven months and things have finally begun to stabilize.

Without going into a rant about the Cougar Point chip set as clearly done in my last review, I am happy to see motherboard manufacturers stepping-up and supporting the new Z68 chip set without worrying about lost sales via defective H67 and P67 boards brought on by Cougar Point. One such manufactureris ASRock.

ASRock Inc. was established in 2002 and is targeted at entry to mainstream motherboard consumers. They stand out as an energetic company carefully striking a balance of technology and humanity.

Devoting efforts to bring customers innovative and reliable motherboards with the design concept of the 3C’s (Creative, Considerate, Cost-effective), ASRock has successfully brought to the table one of the best value driven and top performing motherboards in the industry. ASRocks recognition stems from their devotion to bring the most cost-effective and performance driven hardware components to users.

ASRock is one of those companies that do not often get the recognition and hype they deserve. Since their formation, and particularly since the midpoint of 2010, ASRock has released solid, fully-featured motherboards to the enthusiast market that have remained at a consistently low price point.

I would like to thank ASRock for providing the Z68 Extreme 4 motherboard for review and and I hope to shed some light on this dark horse of motherboard manufacturers.